The Dyakovo archaeological sites became the subject of interest in the early 19th century.

The earliest phase of the culture was a colonization in the late 9th - early 8th century BC. These were small settlements situated on riverbanks close to water, like Tchyortov gorodok (Чёртов городок) on the Moscow River. The Kuntsevskoye, Troitskoye, Scherbinskoye and other sites are located in the territory of modern Moscow. These sites were fortified with moats and ramparts added frequently, with wooden structures, and show clear traces of dwellings.

The 6-7th centuries was a time of crisis for the Dyakovo culture, for reasons still unknown.[2]

1.
Russian language
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Russian is an East Slavic language and an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and many minor or unrecognised territories. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of the four living members of the East Slavic languages, written examples of Old East Slavonic are attested from the 10th century and beyond. It is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages and it is also the largest native language in Europe, with 144 million native speakers in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Russian is the eighth most spoken language in the world by number of native speakers, the language is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Russian is also the second most widespread language on the Internet after English, Russian distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without, the so-called soft and hard sounds. This distinction is found between pairs of almost all consonants and is one of the most distinguishing features of the language, another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels. Russian is a Slavic language of the Indo-European family and it is a lineal descendant of the language used in Kievan Rus. From the point of view of the language, its closest relatives are Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Rusyn. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect, although vanished during the 15th or 16th century, is considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. In the 19th century, the language was often called Great Russian to distinguish it from Belarusian, then called White Russian and Ukrainian, however, the East Slavic forms have tended to be used exclusively in the various dialects that are experiencing a rapid decline. In some cases, both the East Slavic and the Church Slavonic forms are in use, with different meanings. For details, see Russian phonology and History of the Russian language and it is also regarded by the United States Intelligence Community as a hard target language, due to both its difficulty to master for English speakers and its critical role in American world policy. The standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language, mikhail Lomonosov first compiled a normalizing grammar book in 1755, in 1783 the Russian Academys first explanatory Russian dictionary appeared. By the mid-20th century, such dialects were forced out with the introduction of the education system that was established by the Soviet government. Despite the formalization of Standard Russian, some nonstandard dialectal features are observed in colloquial speech. Thus, the Russian language is the 6th largest in the world by number of speakers, after English, Mandarin, Hindi/Urdu, Spanish, Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Education in Russian is still a choice for both Russian as a second language and native speakers in Russia as well as many of the former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics, samuel P. Huntington wrote in the Clash of Civilizations, During the heyday of the Soviet Union, Russian was the lingua franca from Prague to Hanoi

2.
Iron Age
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The Iron Age is an archaeological era, referring to a period of time in the prehistory and protohistory of the Old World when the dominant toolmaking material was iron. It is commonly preceded by the Bronze Age in Europe and Asia with exceptions, meteoric iron has been used by humans since at least 3200 BC. Ancient iron production did not become widespread until the ability to smelt ore, remove impurities. The start of the Iron Age proper is considered by many to fall between around 1200 BC and 600 BC, depending on the region, the earliest known iron artifacts are nine small beads dated to 3200 BC, which were found in burials at Gerzeh, Lower Egypt. They have been identified as meteoric iron shaped by careful hammering, meteoric iron, a characteristic iron–nickel alloy, was used by various ancient peoples thousands of years before the Iron Age. Such iron, being in its metallic state, required no smelting of ores. Smelted iron appears sporadically in the record from the middle Bronze Age. While terrestrial iron is abundant, its high melting point of 1,538 °C placed it out of reach of common use until the end of the second millennium BC. Tins low melting point of 231, similarly, recent archaeological remains of iron working in the Ganges Valley in India have been tentatively dated to 1800 BC. By the Middle Bronze Age, increasing numbers of smelted iron objects appeared in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, African sites are turning up dates as early as 1200 BC. Modern archaeological evidence identifies the start of iron production in around 1200 BC. Between 1200 BC and 1000 BC, diffusion in the understanding of iron metallurgy and use of objects was fast. As evidence, many bronze implements were recycled into weapons during this time, more widespread use of iron led to improved steel-making technology at lower cost. Thus, even when tin became available again, iron was cheaper, stronger, and lighter, and forged iron implements superseded cast bronze tools permanently. Increasingly, the Iron Age in Europe is being seen as a part of the Bronze Age collapse in the ancient Near East, in ancient India, ancient Iran, and ancient Greece. In other regions of Europe, the Iron Age began in the 8th century BC in Central Europe, the Near Eastern Iron Age is divided into two subsections, Iron I and Iron II. Iron I illustrates both continuity and discontinuity with the previous Late Bronze Age, during the Iron Age, the best tools and weapons were made from steel, particularly alloys which were produced with a carbon content between approximately 0. 30% and 1. 2% by weight. Steel weapons and tools were nearly the same weight as those of bronze, however, steel was difficult to produce with the methods available, and alloys that were easier to make, such as wrought iron, were more common in lower-priced goods

3.
Volga River
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The Volga is the longest river in Europe. It is also Europes largest river in terms of discharge and watershed, the river flows through central Russia and into the Caspian Sea, and is widely regarded as the national river of Russia. Eleven of the twenty largest cities of Russia, including the capital, some of the largest reservoirs in the world can be found along the Volga. The river has a meaning in Russian culture and is often referred to as Волга-матушка Volga-Matushka in Russian literature and folklore. The Slavic name is a translation of earlier Scythian Rā Volga, literally wetness, cognate with Avestan Raŋhā mythical stream and Sanskrit rasā́- dew, liquid, juice. The Scythian name survives in modern Mordvin Rav Volga, the Turkic peoples living along the river formerly referred to it as Itil or Atil big river. In modern Turkic languages, the Volga is known as İdel in Tatar, Атăл in Chuvash, Idhel in Bashkir, Edil in Kazakh, the Turkic peoples associated the Itils origin with the Kama. Thus, a tributary to the Kama was named the Aq Itil White Itil which unites with the Kara Itil Black Itil at the modern city of Ufa. The name Indyl is used in Adyge language, among Asians, the river was known by its other Turkic name Sarı-su yellow water, but the Oirats also used their own name, Ijil mörön or adaptation river. Presently the Mari, another Uralic group, call the river Jul, formerly, they called the river Volgydo, a borrowing from Old Russian. The Volga is the longest river in Europe and it belongs to the closed basin of the Caspian Sea, being the longest river to flow into a closed basin. From there it turns south, flows past Ulyanovsk, Tolyatti, Samara, Saratov and Volgograd, at its most strategic point, it bends toward the Don. Volgograd, formerly Stalingrad, is located there, the Volga has many tributaries, most importantly the rivers Kama, the Oka, the Vetluga, and the Sura. The Volga and its tributaries form the Volga river system, which flows through an area of about 1,350,000 square kilometres in the most heavily populated part of Russia. The Volga Delta has a length of about 160 kilometres and includes as many as 500 channels, the largest estuary in Europe, it is the only place in Russia where pelicans, flamingos, and lotuses may be found. The Volga freezes for most of its length for three each year. The Volga drains most of Western Russia and its many large reservoirs provide irrigation and hydroelectric power. The Moscow Canal, the Volga–Don Canal, and the Volga–Baltic Waterway form navigable waterways connecting Moscow to the White Sea, the Baltic Sea, the Caspian Sea, the Sea of Azov, high levels of chemical pollution have adversely affected the river and its habitats

4.
Valdai Hills
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The hills are a northward extension of the Central Russian Upland. The ridge is overlain by deposited glacial materials in the form of terminal moraines, the Valdai Hills reach their maximum height of 346.9 m near Vyshny Volochyok. The Volga, the Daugava, the Lovat, the Msta, the Dnieper, the Syas, the region thus is divided between the drainage basins of the Caspian Sea, the Black Sea, and the Baltic Sea. It is a place of lakes, among them Lake Volgo, Lake Peno, Lake Seliger, Lake Brosno. The Valdai Hills are a popular tourist destination, particularly for fishing, the towns of Ostashkov and Valday are also remarkable for their historical associations. Valdaysky National Park was established in 1990 in the part of Novgorod Oblast to protect the landscapes of the highest part of the hills. The park includes Lake Valdayskoye and the section of Lake Seliger. Since 2004, the National Park has the status of a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve

5.
Oka River
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Oka is a river in central Russia, the largest right tributary of the Volga. It flows through the regions of Oryol, Tula, Kaluga, Moscow, Ryazan, Vladimir, the Russian capital Moscow sits on one of the Okas tributaries—the Moskva River. Max Vasmer connects the name of the river to the Gothic аƕа, Old High German aha, Latin aqua, which all mean either water or river. Oleg Trubachev traces the origin of the name to the Baltic languages, historically, the river gave its name to the Upper Oka Principalities, situated upstream from Tarusa. In 1221 Grand Duke Yuri II of Vladimir founded Nizhny Novgorod, later to one of the largest Russian cities. The Qasim Khanate, a Muslim polity, occupied the middle reaches of the Oka in the 15th and 16th centuries, traveling upstream may have been even slower, as the boats had to be pulled by burlaks. The Prioksko-Terrasny Biosphere Reserve lies along the bank of the river opposite the town of Pushchino and is known for its wisent breeding nursery. The unit fought all the way to Berlin alongside the Red Army and it was written by Leon Pasternak. Oka at GEOnet Names Server Media related to Oka River at Wikimedia Commons

6.
Moscow River
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The Moskva River is a river of western Russia. It rises about 140 km west of Moscow, and flows roughly east through the Smolensk and Moscow Oblasts, passing through central Moscow. About 110 km south east of Moscow, at the city of Kolomna, it flows into the Oka River, itself a tributary of the Volga, Moskva and Moscow are two different renderings of the same Russian word Москва. The city is named after the river, the origin of the name is unknown, although several theories exist. The river is 503 km long, with a drop of 155 m. The area of its basin is 17,600 km2. The maximum depth is 3 metres above Moscow city limits, normally, it freezes in November–December and begins to thaw around late March. In Moscow, the river freezes occasionally, during a warm winter in 2006–2007. The absolute water level in downtown Moscow is 120 metres above sea level, the main tributaries are the Ruza, Istra, Yauza, Pakhra, and Severka rivers. Sources of water are estimated as 61% thaw, 12% rain, since completion of the Moscow Canal, the Moskva River has also collected a share of Upper Volga water. This has enabled reliable commercial shipping, which was interrupted by summer droughts. The average discharge, including Volga waters, varies from 38 m3/s near Zvenigorod to 250 m3/s at the Oka inlet, the speed of the current, depending on the season, varies from 0.1 m/s to 1. 5–2.0 m/s. Moscow, the capital of Russia, is situated on its banks, the river also flows through the towns of Mozhaysk, Zvenigorod, Zhukovsky, Bronnitsy, Voskresensk, and — at the confluence of the Moskva and Oka — Kolomna. As of 2007, there are 49 bridges across the Moskva River and its canals within Moscow city limits, within the city, the river is 120–200 metres wide, the narrowest point being under the Kremlin walls. Drinking water for the city of Moscow is collected from five stations on the Moskva River, canals, built within Moscow city limits, have created a number of islands. Some of them have names in Russian, some have none, major, permanent islands are, Serebryany Bor. Separated from the mainland in the 1930s, tatarskaya Poyma, commonly known as Mnyovniki. Separated from the mainland in the 1930s Balchug Island, also known as Bolotny Ostrov, the island was formed by the construction of the Vodootvodny Canal in the 1780s, and has no official name in Russian

7.
Moscow
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Moscow is the capital and most populous city of Russia, with 13.2 million residents within the city limits and 17.8 million within the urban area. Moscow has the status of a Russian federal city, Moscow is a major political, economic, cultural, and scientific center of Russia and Eastern Europe, as well as the largest city entirely on the European continent. Moscow is the northernmost and coldest megacity and metropolis on Earth and it is home to the Ostankino Tower, the tallest free standing structure in Europe, the Federation Tower, the tallest skyscraper in Europe, and the Moscow International Business Center. Moscow is situated on the Moskva River in the Central Federal District of European Russia, the city is well known for its architecture, particularly its historic buildings such as Saint Basils Cathedral with its brightly colored domes. Moscow is the seat of power of the Government of Russia, being the site of the Moscow Kremlin, the Moscow Kremlin and Red Square are also one of several World Heritage Sites in the city. Both chambers of the Russian parliament also sit in the city and it is recognized as one of the citys landmarks due to the rich architecture of its 200 stations. In old Russian the word also meant a church administrative district. The demonym for a Moscow resident is москвич for male or москвичка for female, the name of the city is thought to be derived from the name of the Moskva River. There have been proposed several theories of the origin of the name of the river and its cognates include Russian, музга, muzga pool, puddle, Lithuanian, mazgoti and Latvian, mazgāt to wash, Sanskrit, majjati to drown, Latin, mergō to dip, immerse. There exist as well similar place names in Poland like Mozgawa, the original Old Russian form of the name is reconstructed as *Москы, *Mosky, hence it was one of a few Slavic ū-stem nouns. From the latter forms came the modern Russian name Москва, Moskva, in a similar manner the Latin name Moscovia has been formed, later it became a colloquial name for Russia used in Western Europe in the 16th–17th centuries. From it as well came English Muscovy, various other theories, having little or no scientific ground, are now largely rejected by contemporary linguists. The surface similarity of the name Russia with Rosh, an obscure biblical tribe or country, the oldest evidence of humans on the territory of Moscow dates from the Neolithic. Within the modern bounds of the city other late evidence was discovered, on the territory of the Kremlin, Sparrow Hills, Setun River and Kuntsevskiy forest park, etc. The earliest East Slavic tribes recorded as having expanded to the upper Volga in the 9th to 10th centuries are the Vyatichi and Krivichi, the Moskva River was incorporated as part of Rostov-Suzdal into the Kievan Rus in the 11th century. By AD1100, a settlement had appeared on the mouth of the Neglinnaya River. The first known reference to Moscow dates from 1147 as a place of Yuri Dolgoruky. At the time it was a town on the western border of Vladimir-Suzdal Principality

8.
Finno-Ugric peoples
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The four most numerous Finno-Ugric peoples are the Hungarians, Finns, Estonians and Mordvins. The first three of these have their own independent states – Hungary, Finland, and Estonia, the traditional area of the indigenous Sami people is in Northern Fenno-Scandinavia and the Kola Peninsula in Northwest Russia and is known as Sápmi. Some other Finno-Ugric peoples have autonomous republics in Russia, Karelians, Komi, Udmurts, Mari, khanty and Mansi peoples live in Khanty–Mansi Autonomous Okrug of Russia. Komi subgroup Komi-Permyaks used to live in Komi-Permyak Autonomous Okrug, Vladimir Lenin may have had Mordvin ancestry. There is a belief that President Vladimir Putin of Russia is potentially of Vepsian ancestry, a central concept in their cosmologies is the myth that the world was created from an egg. There are also myths about the Milky Way, ideas about the existence of the World tree or pillar, a myth about a bird floating on the primary ocean that dives for the ground is a central Uralic cosmogonic myth. In 2007, the 1st Festival of the Finno-Ugric Peoples was hosted by President Vladimir Putin of Russia, and visited by Finnish President, Tarja Halonen, north Eurasian Finno-Ugric-speaking populations were found to be genetically a heterogeneous group showing lower haplotype diversities compared to more southern populations. The proposal of a Finno-Ugric language family has led to the not just of an ancient Proto–Finno-Ugric people. Such hypotheses are based on the assumption that heredity can be traced though linguistic relatedness, however, Finno-Ugric has not been reconstructed linguistically, attempts to do so have been indistinguishable from Proto-Uralic. Like in any human population, individual groups within the Finno-Ugric language family have a diverse array of cultural, environmental. R1a1a7-M458 R1a1a7-M458 frequency peaks among Slavic and Finno-Ugric peoples, r1a1a1i This group seems to have connection with among others the Finno-Ugric peoples. It is the North-East European subclade of R1a1a1 and spread from the Baltic to the Ural Mountains as well as the Carpathian Basin, the majority of the Steppe Magyars likely belonged to this haplogroup, carrying the Ugric Hungarian language. Ananyino culture Comb Ceramic culture Dyakovo culture Samoyedic peoples Finno-Ugrian suicide hypothesis Mile Nedeljković, Leksikon naroda sveta, people of Volga and Uralic regions

9.
Merya
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The Permians are sometimes also grouped as Volga Finns. The modern representatives of Volga Finns live in the basins of the Sura and Moksha rivers, the Mari language has two dialects, the Meadow Mari and the Hill Mari. This grouping has also criticized by Salminen, who suggests it may be simply a geographic, not a phylogenetic. Since 2009 the 16th edition of Ethnologue, Languages of the World has adopted a classification grouping Mari, the Volga Finns are not to be confused with the Finns. The Mari or Cheremis have traditionally lived along the Volga and Kama rivers in Russia, the majority of Maris today live in the Mari El Republic, with significant populations in the Tatarstan and Bashkortostan republics. In the 2002 Russian census,604,298 people identified themselves as Mari, almost 60% of Mari lived in rural areas. They were briefly mentioned in the 6th century by Jordanes and were described in more detail by the Primary Chronicle. Soviet archaeologists believed that the capital of the Merya was Sarskoe Gorodishche near the bank of the Nero Lake to the south of Rostov and they are thought to have been peacefully assimilated by the East Slavs after their territory became incorporated in the Kievan Rus in the 11th century. One hypothesis describes the Merya as western branch of the Mari people rather than a separate tribe and their names are basically identical, Merya being a Russian transcription of the Mari self-designation, Мäрӹ. The unattested Merya language is assumed to have been a member of the Volga-Finnic group. This view has been challenged by Eugene Helimski, who supposes that the Merya language was closer to the northwest group of Finno-Ugric, some of the inhabitants of several districts of Kostroma and Yaroslavl present themselves as Meryan, although in recent censuses, they were registered as Russians. The modern Merya people have their own websites to show their flag, coat of arms and national anthem,2010 saw the release of the film Ovsyanki, based on the novel of the same name, devoted to the make-believe life of modern Merya people. In recent years, a new type of movement, the so-called Ethnofuturism of Merya was emerged. It is distributed in the regions of Russia, for example, in Moscow, Pereslavl-Zalessky, Kostroma. In October 2014, adopted the 50-minute presentation Merya Language III Festival of Languages at the University Novgorod, in May 2014, the New Gallery in the city of Ivanovo during the Night of Museums opened art project mater Volga. Sacrum. The Meshchera lived in the territory between the Oka River and the Klyazma river and it was a land of forests, bogs and lakes. The area is called the Meshchera Lowlands. The first Russian written source which mentions them is the Tolkovaya Paleya and they are also mentioned in several later Russian chronicles from the period before the 16th century

10.
Muromian
–
The Permians are sometimes also grouped as Volga Finns. The modern representatives of Volga Finns live in the basins of the Sura and Moksha rivers, the Mari language has two dialects, the Meadow Mari and the Hill Mari. This grouping has also criticized by Salminen, who suggests it may be simply a geographic, not a phylogenetic. Since 2009 the 16th edition of Ethnologue, Languages of the World has adopted a classification grouping Mari, the Volga Finns are not to be confused with the Finns. The Mari or Cheremis have traditionally lived along the Volga and Kama rivers in Russia, the majority of Maris today live in the Mari El Republic, with significant populations in the Tatarstan and Bashkortostan republics. In the 2002 Russian census,604,298 people identified themselves as Mari, almost 60% of Mari lived in rural areas. They were briefly mentioned in the 6th century by Jordanes and were described in more detail by the Primary Chronicle. Soviet archaeologists believed that the capital of the Merya was Sarskoe Gorodishche near the bank of the Nero Lake to the south of Rostov and they are thought to have been peacefully assimilated by the East Slavs after their territory became incorporated in the Kievan Rus in the 11th century. One hypothesis describes the Merya as western branch of the Mari people rather than a separate tribe and their names are basically identical, Merya being a Russian transcription of the Mari self-designation, Мäрӹ. The unattested Merya language is assumed to have been a member of the Volga-Finnic group. This view has been challenged by Eugene Helimski, who supposes that the Merya language was closer to the northwest group of Finno-Ugric, some of the inhabitants of several districts of Kostroma and Yaroslavl present themselves as Meryan, although in recent censuses, they were registered as Russians. The modern Merya people have their own websites to show their flag, coat of arms and national anthem,2010 saw the release of the film Ovsyanki, based on the novel of the same name, devoted to the make-believe life of modern Merya people. In recent years, a new type of movement, the so-called Ethnofuturism of Merya was emerged. It is distributed in the regions of Russia, for example, in Moscow, Pereslavl-Zalessky, Kostroma. In October 2014, adopted the 50-minute presentation Merya Language III Festival of Languages at the University Novgorod, in May 2014, the New Gallery in the city of Ivanovo during the Night of Museums opened art project mater Volga. Sacrum. The Meshchera lived in the territory between the Oka River and the Klyazma river and it was a land of forests, bogs and lakes. The area is called the Meshchera Lowlands. The first Russian written source which mentions them is the Tolkovaya Paleya and they are also mentioned in several later Russian chronicles from the period before the 16th century

11.
Meshchera
–
The Permians are sometimes also grouped as Volga Finns. The modern representatives of Volga Finns live in the basins of the Sura and Moksha rivers, the Mari language has two dialects, the Meadow Mari and the Hill Mari. This grouping has also criticized by Salminen, who suggests it may be simply a geographic, not a phylogenetic. Since 2009 the 16th edition of Ethnologue, Languages of the World has adopted a classification grouping Mari, the Volga Finns are not to be confused with the Finns. The Mari or Cheremis have traditionally lived along the Volga and Kama rivers in Russia, the majority of Maris today live in the Mari El Republic, with significant populations in the Tatarstan and Bashkortostan republics. In the 2002 Russian census,604,298 people identified themselves as Mari, almost 60% of Mari lived in rural areas. They were briefly mentioned in the 6th century by Jordanes and were described in more detail by the Primary Chronicle. Soviet archaeologists believed that the capital of the Merya was Sarskoe Gorodishche near the bank of the Nero Lake to the south of Rostov and they are thought to have been peacefully assimilated by the East Slavs after their territory became incorporated in the Kievan Rus in the 11th century. One hypothesis describes the Merya as western branch of the Mari people rather than a separate tribe and their names are basically identical, Merya being a Russian transcription of the Mari self-designation, Мäрӹ. The unattested Merya language is assumed to have been a member of the Volga-Finnic group. This view has been challenged by Eugene Helimski, who supposes that the Merya language was closer to the northwest group of Finno-Ugric, some of the inhabitants of several districts of Kostroma and Yaroslavl present themselves as Meryan, although in recent censuses, they were registered as Russians. The modern Merya people have their own websites to show their flag, coat of arms and national anthem,2010 saw the release of the film Ovsyanki, based on the novel of the same name, devoted to the make-believe life of modern Merya people. In recent years, a new type of movement, the so-called Ethnofuturism of Merya was emerged. It is distributed in the regions of Russia, for example, in Moscow, Pereslavl-Zalessky, Kostroma. In October 2014, adopted the 50-minute presentation Merya Language III Festival of Languages at the University Novgorod, in May 2014, the New Gallery in the city of Ivanovo during the Night of Museums opened art project mater Volga. Sacrum. The Meshchera lived in the territory between the Oka River and the Klyazma river and it was a land of forests, bogs and lakes. The area is called the Meshchera Lowlands. The first Russian written source which mentions them is the Tolkovaya Paleya and they are also mentioned in several later Russian chronicles from the period before the 16th century

12.
Vepsians
–
Veps or Vepsians are a Finnic people who speak the Veps language, which belongs to the Finnic branch of the Uralic languages. The self-designations of these people in various dialects are vepslaine, bepslaane, according to the 2002 census, there were 8,240 Veps in Russia. Of the 281 Veps in Ukraine,11 spoke Vepsian, the most prominent researcher of the Veps in Finland is Eugene Holman. Western Vepsians have kept their language and culture, nowadays almost all Vepsians speak fluent Russian. The young generation in general does not speak their native language and they probably also lived in East Karelia and on the northern coast of Lake Onega. It is possible that the earliest mention of the Veps dates to the sixth century CE, when the Gothic historian Jordanes mentioned a people called Vasina broncas, which may have indicated the Vepsians. One of the routes of the Vikings went through their area. Evidence from tombs prove that they had contact with Staraya Ladoga, Finland and Meryans, other Volga Finnic tribes and later with the Principality of Novgorod, later Vepsians inhabited also the western and eastern shores of Onega. In early Kievan Rus chronicles, they are called Весь and in some Arabic sources they are called Wisu and it is assumed that Bjarmians were at least partly Vepsians. From the 12th century their history is connected with first the Principality of Novgorod, Russian settlement reached the Onega Veps in the 14th or 15th century. Eastern Vepsians in the Kargopol area merged linguistically with the Russians before the 20th century, the existence of the Vepsian people was not widely known until the mid-19th century. Despite its close relationship to the Karelian and the Finnish languages, some 7,300 of them inhabited East Karelia. In the beginning of the 20th century there were signs of national awakening among Vepsians. Early Soviet nationality politics supported this progress, and 24 administrative units with the status of national village soviets were formed, the alphabet and the written language were developed. Teachers started to instruct in Vepsian in some elementary schools, the Soviet authorities started to oppress the Vepsian culture in 1937. All national activities were stopped and the districts were abolished. When Finland invaded East Karelia in the Continuation war, some Vepsians joined the so-called Kindred Battalion of the Finnish Army and these troops were relinquished to the Soviet Union after the war. In the postwar period many Veps moved from their villages to larger cities

13.
Yauza River
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This article is about a river in Moscow, a tributary of the Moskva River. There are three other Yauza rivers in Central Russia, tributaries of the Lama, Gzhat and Sestra, the Yauza is a river in Moscow and Mytishchi, Russia, a tributary of the Moskva River. The Yauza joins the Moskva River in Tagansky District just west of Tagansky Hill, valleys of the Yauza, from the MKAD beltway in the north to the Moscow-Yaroslavl railway west of Sokolniki Park, are protected as natural reserves. The Yauza has been mentioned in Russian chronicles since 1156, the origin of the name is unknown. Moscow crossed its former eastern boundary in the beginning of the 16th century. Settlements along the Yauza played a significant role in the history of Russia in the 17th and 18th centuries, industrialization in the 19th and 20th centuries made the Yauza the biggest gutter for waste in Moscow. In the 2000s the ecology improved, with the closing or conversion of old factories, in 2007 the Yauza waters were reclassified from dirty to polluted status, but in 2008 the trend reversed and pollution in the Yauza exceeded its 2006 levels. As of 2008, Yauza water passing the Moscow city boundary is rated as polluted, untreated surface runoff in the Central Administrative District remains the main source of pollution. The Yauza is arguably one of the most ancient European rivers, a proto-Yauza River first appeared in Permian-Triassic period, at which time it flowed to the east of its present riverbed, down todays Izmailovo Gully. After being periodically submerged during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, the region finally became land in the Tertiary period, the contemporary Yauza consists of three parts, The Yauza collects waters from many tributaries, most of them confined to underground sewers. The few that remain on the surface, at least partially, are, the water level in the lower Yauza is regulated by the Pererva Dam on the Moskva River, and by the locks on the Yauza itself east of Kursky Rail Terminal. Raised water levels in the portion of the Yauza basin led to long-term flooding. Spring floods due to low clearance under old bridges were common, with four in the 1950s alone, the most recent flash flood on the Yauza occurred August 14,2003, following a record-setting rainfall. The Yauza and its valleys are not particularly prone to the landslides, there were two minor landslides on the Yauza in 2008, compared with 40 on the Chertanovka River and 33 on the Gorodnya River. There is no commercial or recreational shipping, although the river is accessible to motor boats as far as Preobrazhenskaya Square. There is no generally accepted etymology for Yauza or Auza, similar toponyms exist in modern Latvia, the Baltic origins of Yauza are generally accepted but have not been proven. Medieval Moscow grew from its Kremlin primarily in a northeasterly direction, st. Andronik Monastery on the Yauza formed the eastern defence arc, together with the Pokrovsky and Novospassky monasteries. The Yauza was used as a waterway from Moscow to Vladimir until the 16th century

14.
Moskva River
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The Moskva River is a river of western Russia. It rises about 140 km west of Moscow, and flows roughly east through the Smolensk and Moscow Oblasts, passing through central Moscow. About 110 km south east of Moscow, at the city of Kolomna, it flows into the Oka River, itself a tributary of the Volga, Moskva and Moscow are two different renderings of the same Russian word Москва. The city is named after the river, the origin of the name is unknown, although several theories exist. The river is 503 km long, with a drop of 155 m. The area of its basin is 17,600 km2. The maximum depth is 3 metres above Moscow city limits, normally, it freezes in November–December and begins to thaw around late March. In Moscow, the river freezes occasionally, during a warm winter in 2006–2007. The absolute water level in downtown Moscow is 120 metres above sea level, the main tributaries are the Ruza, Istra, Yauza, Pakhra, and Severka rivers. Sources of water are estimated as 61% thaw, 12% rain, since completion of the Moscow Canal, the Moskva River has also collected a share of Upper Volga water. This has enabled reliable commercial shipping, which was interrupted by summer droughts. The average discharge, including Volga waters, varies from 38 m3/s near Zvenigorod to 250 m3/s at the Oka inlet, the speed of the current, depending on the season, varies from 0.1 m/s to 1. 5–2.0 m/s. Moscow, the capital of Russia, is situated on its banks, the river also flows through the towns of Mozhaysk, Zvenigorod, Zhukovsky, Bronnitsy, Voskresensk, and — at the confluence of the Moskva and Oka — Kolomna. As of 2007, there are 49 bridges across the Moskva River and its canals within Moscow city limits, within the city, the river is 120–200 metres wide, the narrowest point being under the Kremlin walls. Drinking water for the city of Moscow is collected from five stations on the Moskva River, canals, built within Moscow city limits, have created a number of islands. Some of them have names in Russian, some have none, major, permanent islands are, Serebryany Bor. Separated from the mainland in the 1930s, tatarskaya Poyma, commonly known as Mnyovniki. Separated from the mainland in the 1930s Balchug Island, also known as Bolotny Ostrov, the island was formed by the construction of the Vodootvodny Canal in the 1780s, and has no official name in Russian

15.
History of Russia
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The History of Russia begins with that of the Eastern Slavs. The traditional beginning of Russian history is 862 A. D. Kievan Rus, the state adopted Christianity from the Byzantine Empire in 988, beginning with the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Kievan Rus ultimately disintegrated as a state because of the Mongol invasion of Rus in 1237–1240, after the 13th century, Moscow became a cultural center. By the 18th century, the Tsardom of Russia had become the huge Russian Empire, expansion in the western direction sharpened Russias awareness of its separation from much of the rest of Europe and shattered the isolation in which the initial stages of expansion had occurred. Successive regimes of the 19th century responded to such pressures with a combination of halfhearted reform, peasant revolts were common, and all were fiercely suppressed. Russian serfdom was abolished in 1861, but the peasant fared poorly, from its first years, government in the Soviet Union was based on the one-party rule of the Communists, as the Bolsheviks called themselves, beginning in March 1918. The Russian Federation began in January 1992 as the successor to the USSR. Russia retained its nuclear arsenal but lost its superpower status, Russias treatment of Ukraine led to severe economic sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union. In 2006,1. 5-million-year-old Oldowan flint tools were discovered in the Dagestan Akusha region of the north Caucasus, arctic Russia was reached by 40,000 years ago. During the prehistoric eras the vast steppes of Southern Russia were home to tribes of nomadic pastoralists, in classical antiquity, the Pontic Steppe was known as Scythia. Remnants of these long gone steppe cultures were discovered in the course of the 20th century in places as Ipatovo, Sintashta, Arkaim. In the latter part of the 8th century BCE, Greek merchants brought classical civilization to the trade emporiums in Tanais, gelonus was described by Herodotos as a huge earth- and wood-fortified grad inhabited around 500 BCE by Heloni and Budini. At about the 2nd century CE Goths migrated to the Black Sea, and in the 3rd and 4th centuries CE, a Turkic people, the Khazars, ruled the lower Volga basin steppes between the Caspian and Black Seas through to the 8th century. Noted for their laws, tolerance, and cosmopolitanism, the Khazars were the commercial link between the Baltic and the Muslim Abbasid empire centered in Baghdad. They were important allies of the Byzantine Empire, and waged a series of wars against the Arab Caliphates. In the 8th century, the Khazars embraced Judaism, some of the ancestors of the modern Russians were the Slavic tribes, whose original home is thought by some scholars to have been the wooded areas of the Pripet Marshes. The Early East Slavs gradually settled Western Russia in two waves, one moving from Kiev towards present-day Suzdal and Murom and another from Polotsk towards Novgorod, scandinavian Norsemen, known as Vikings in Western Europe and Varangians in the East, combined piracy and trade throughout Northern Europe. In the mid-9th century, they began to venture along the waterways from the eastern Baltic to the Black, thus, the first East Slavic state, Rus, emerged in the 9th century along the Dnieper River valley

Russian language
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Russian is an East Slavic language and an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and many minor or unrecognised territories. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of the four living members of the East Slavic languages, written examples of Old East Slavonic are attested from the 10th century and b

3.
This page from an "ABC" book printed in Moscow in 1694 shows the letter П.

4.
The Ostromir Gospels of 1056 is the second oldest East Slavic book known, one of many medieval illuminated manuscripts preserved in the Russian National Library.

Iron Age
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The Iron Age is an archaeological era, referring to a period of time in the prehistory and protohistory of the Old World when the dominant toolmaking material was iron. It is commonly preceded by the Bronze Age in Europe and Asia with exceptions, meteoric iron has been used by humans since at least 3200 BC. Ancient iron production did not become wi

1.
Archaeological artifact from the work developed in the area of Citânia de Briteiros

3.
Cross or cruzado in Citânia de Breteiros

4.
A pedra formosa

Volga River
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The Volga is the longest river in Europe. It is also Europes largest river in terms of discharge and watershed, the river flows through central Russia and into the Caspian Sea, and is widely regarded as the national river of Russia. Eleven of the twenty largest cities of Russia, including the capital, some of the largest reservoirs in the world can

1.
The Volga at Ulyanovsk

2.
Cruise ships on the Volga River.

3.
The Saratov Bridge, Saratov Oblast

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Rzhev is the uppermost town situated on the Volga (photographed c. 1910)

Valdai Hills
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The hills are a northward extension of the Central Russian Upland. The ridge is overlain by deposited glacial materials in the form of terminal moraines, the Valdai Hills reach their maximum height of 346.9 m near Vyshny Volochyok. The Volga, the Daugava, the Lovat, the Msta, the Dnieper, the Syas, the region thus is divided between the drainage ba

1.
View from the Valdai Hills.

Oka River
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Oka is a river in central Russia, the largest right tributary of the Volga. It flows through the regions of Oryol, Tula, Kaluga, Moscow, Ryazan, Vladimir, the Russian capital Moscow sits on one of the Okas tributaries—the Moskva River. Max Vasmer connects the name of the river to the Gothic аƕа, Old High German aha, Latin aqua, which all mean eithe

1.
Oka river between Serpukhov and Kashira cities in Moscow region. Its width there is about 200 m (220 yd).

2.
The confluence of the Oka with the Volga in Nizhny Novgorod.

3.
The Oka riverbank in Nizhny Novgorod.

4.
The Oka River in Ryazan Oblast, near Rybnoe.

Moscow River
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The Moskva River is a river of western Russia. It rises about 140 km west of Moscow, and flows roughly east through the Smolensk and Moscow Oblasts, passing through central Moscow. About 110 km south east of Moscow, at the city of Kolomna, it flows into the Oka River, itself a tributary of the Volga, Moskva and Moscow are two different renderings o

1.
Moskva River in Kolomna, just upstream from its confluence with the Oka River

2.
Map of the Volga watershed with the Moskva highlighted; the two rivers are directly connected by the Moscow Canal

3.
Moskva River in central Moscow, view towards the Kremlin

4.
Boats on the Moskva River near the Luzhniki area of Moscow, with Novodevichy Convent at right

Moscow
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Moscow is the capital and most populous city of Russia, with 13.2 million residents within the city limits and 17.8 million within the urban area. Moscow has the status of a Russian federal city, Moscow is a major political, economic, cultural, and scientific center of Russia and Eastern Europe, as well as the largest city entirely on the European

1.
Left to right, top to bottom: Moscow State University, Spasskaya Clocktower, Cathedral of Christ the Saviour; Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow International Business Center; Red Square

2.
Tatar raid upon Moscow

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Map of Moscow, 1784

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Red Square, painting by Fedor Alekseev, 1801

Finno-Ugric peoples
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The four most numerous Finno-Ugric peoples are the Hungarians, Finns, Estonians and Mordvins. The first three of these have their own independent states – Hungary, Finland, and Estonia, the traditional area of the indigenous Sami people is in Northern Fenno-Scandinavia and the Kola Peninsula in Northwest Russia and is known as Sápmi. Some other Fin

1.
Finnish artist, Akseli Gallen-Kallela

2.
Pie chart showing the percentage rates of specific nations speaking languages of the Finno-Ugric family

3.
Karelian women in Sammatus

4.
From left to right: Sven-Roald Nystø, Aili Keskitalo and Ole Henrik Magga, the second, third and first president of the Norwegian Sámi Parliament

Merya
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The Permians are sometimes also grouped as Volga Finns. The modern representatives of Volga Finns live in the basins of the Sura and Moksha rivers, the Mari language has two dialects, the Meadow Mari and the Hill Mari. This grouping has also criticized by Salminen, who suggests it may be simply a geographic, not a phylogenetic. Since 2009 the 16th

1.
Approximate ethno-linguistic map of European Eastern Kievan Rus in the 9th century: The five Volga Finnic groups of the Merya, Mari, Muromians, Meshchera and Mordvins are shown as surrounded by the Slavs to the west, the (Finnic) Veps to the northwest, the Permians to the northeast the (Turkic) Bulghars and Khazars to the southeast and south.

Muromian
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The Permians are sometimes also grouped as Volga Finns. The modern representatives of Volga Finns live in the basins of the Sura and Moksha rivers, the Mari language has two dialects, the Meadow Mari and the Hill Mari. This grouping has also criticized by Salminen, who suggests it may be simply a geographic, not a phylogenetic. Since 2009 the 16th

1.
Approximate ethno-linguistic map of European Eastern Kievan Rus in the 9th century: The five Volga Finnic groups of the Merya, Mari, Muromians, Meshchera and Mordvins are shown as surrounded by the Slavs to the west, the (Finnic) Veps to the northwest, the Permians to the northeast the (Turkic) Bulghars and Khazars to the southeast and south.

Meshchera
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The Permians are sometimes also grouped as Volga Finns. The modern representatives of Volga Finns live in the basins of the Sura and Moksha rivers, the Mari language has two dialects, the Meadow Mari and the Hill Mari. This grouping has also criticized by Salminen, who suggests it may be simply a geographic, not a phylogenetic. Since 2009 the 16th

1.
Approximate ethno-linguistic map of European Eastern Kievan Rus in the 9th century: The five Volga Finnic groups of the Merya, Mari, Muromians, Meshchera and Mordvins are shown as surrounded by the Slavs to the west, the (Finnic) Veps to the northwest, the Permians to the northeast the (Turkic) Bulghars and Khazars to the southeast and south.

Vepsians
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Veps or Vepsians are a Finnic people who speak the Veps language, which belongs to the Finnic branch of the Uralic languages. The self-designations of these people in various dialects are vepslaine, bepslaane, according to the 2002 census, there were 8,240 Veps in Russia. Of the 281 Veps in Ukraine,11 spoke Vepsian, the most prominent researcher of

Yauza River
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This article is about a river in Moscow, a tributary of the Moskva River. There are three other Yauza rivers in Central Russia, tributaries of the Lama, Gzhat and Sestra, the Yauza is a river in Moscow and Mytishchi, Russia, a tributary of the Moskva River. The Yauza joins the Moskva River in Tagansky District just west of Tagansky Hill, valleys of

3.
After the river enters the city of Mytischi, it flows through a chain of narrow valleys into Sokolniki Park deep inside Moscow.(55°49′24″N 37°40′19″E﻿ / ﻿55.82333°N 37.67194°E﻿ / 55.82333; 37.67194) The Yauza Valleys, zoned specially protected natural territories, are managed by city authorities as public parks.

4.
Lefortovsky Bridge, one of the oldest in Moscow, was built in 1777.

Moskva River
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The Moskva River is a river of western Russia. It rises about 140 km west of Moscow, and flows roughly east through the Smolensk and Moscow Oblasts, passing through central Moscow. About 110 km south east of Moscow, at the city of Kolomna, it flows into the Oka River, itself a tributary of the Volga, Moskva and Moscow are two different renderings o

1.
Moskva River in Kolomna, just upstream from its confluence with the Oka River

2.
Map of the Volga watershed with the Moskva highlighted; the two rivers are directly connected by the Moscow Canal

3.
Moskva River in central Moscow, view towards the Kremlin

4.
Boats on the Moskva River near the Luzhniki area of Moscow, with Novodevichy Convent at right

History of Russia
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The History of Russia begins with that of the Eastern Slavs. The traditional beginning of Russian history is 862 A. D. Kievan Rus, the state adopted Christianity from the Byzantine Empire in 988, beginning with the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Kievan Rus ultimately disintegrated as

1.
The Millennium of Russia monument (was opened on 8th September 1862) on a postage stamp dedicated to the 1140th anniversary of the Russian statehood in 2002

2.
The Sacking of Suzdal by Batu Khan in February 1238: a miniature from the 16th-century chronicle

3.
Alexander Nevsky in the Golden Horde.

4.
During the reign of Daniel, Moscow was little more than a small timber fort lost in the forests of Central Rus'